Page 55 of Snowflakes and Sparks

“There’s someone here for you, Suzie.” She looked at her golden watch. “He’s been waiting for more than two hours already.”

“Me?” I asked. “That’s impossible. No one knows I’m here.”

Jane turned on her heel and we followed her inside. As I rounded the corner and caught a glimpse of the table, my heart stopped in my throat.

Sitting between Dean’s teenage cousins was Alex. I blinked. Was I dreaming? Was I still drunk?

He got up and his chair fell to the ground with a loud bang. The room grew quiet and I froze in place.

“What… how… you…”

“Suzie,” Alex began. “Maybe we can go outside and talk?”

What was he doing here? How did he get here? The questions kept bumping against each other, each one fighting for a chance to be uttered first.

Without talking, I walked outside again. Dean’s family kept quiet, following our every move. Who would’ve guessed that this was the way to make them shut up for a while?

Alex followed me into the garden and grabbed my hand.

“What are you doing here, Alex?” I asked. “Is Heather going to jump out of the bushes as well?”

He looked me straight in the eye. “Heather and I are history.”

“Yeah,” I said with a huff. “That’s what you told me before and yet that turned out to be a lie. You’re a liar. And a… a… You’re…”

“In love with you,” he said.

“You are?”

He cupped my face in his hands. “I am.”

“Then why did Heather tell me you guys were back together?” I asked, pushing his hands away, but he immediately put them right back. “You told me she was at your house when we were on the phone yesterday. Was that a lie as well?”

“She showed up out of the blue, claiming that we needed to make it work again, that she’d been wrong for turning me down. But I told her my heart was taken. By you.”

“But then why didn’t you answer the door when I dropped by?”

A pained expression crossed over his face. “I was in the shower. When I realized what had happened, you were gone already. Addy told me you left in a hurry after talking with Heather and I didn’t know what to do. I needed time to think, to process everything. I wanted to find a way to tell you about Heather taking over the store without it sounding like I knew about it. I swear I didn’t.”

I looked up at him. There was nothing but honesty in his eyes. “And you feeling sick? You sure don’t look sick to me.”

Alex shook his head. “It wasn’t a lie. Heather showing up made me physically ill. But as soon as I knew the truth, my feelings of nausea got replaced by relief. Then fear of having you slip through my fingers.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“How did she even know about the job opening?” I asked.

“Heather’s sister works at the hospital Diane stayed at when she broke her hip. You know how talkative she is. I’m so sorry, Suzie.”

“One simple phone call. That’s all it would’ve taken for you to tell me the truth. Heck, you called me when I was at the airport and all you said was that things were not what I thought they were. Could you have been any vaguer?”

He turned his gaze down. “I was confused. I didn’t know what to do and you ran away. You know running away is never the solution, Suzie.”

I dropped my shoulders down. “I know that now.”

“When Addy gave me the gift you’d bought me, I knew that I couldn’t let you go without a fight,” Alex said.

“My gift? The snow globe?”

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